It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's too late to do something. And it can really get you down.
If you've ever thought that you were too old or it was too late, or maybe just that you would never be good enough, we'd like you to meet someone.
Her name was Anna Mary Robertson Moses, but you might have heard of her by her nickname "Grandma Moses."
Born in 1860 as one of 10 children, Grandma Moses was interested in painting from childhood. But life in Greenwich, NY, on a farm meant that work had to come first.
She began working at age 12 as a housekeeper, and it wouldn't be until she was much older that she began painting full-time.
How much older? Grandma Moses didn't start her art career in earnest until she was 78 years old. And she would keep painting scenes of beautiful country life up until her death in 1961, at age 101.
By that time, she was a beloved fixture of American folk art, and was even friends with painter Norman Rockwell. Her nickname, "Grandma," reflected the familial, homey feeling people took from her paintings.
So if you ever feel that the time for your passion, or even just your favorite pastimes, has gone, rethink it. These two brothers rediscovered something that they used to love after more than six decades, so you know it's not too late for you!
What do you think of her lovely art? Let us know in the comments below!
Anna Mary Robertson was born in 1860, the third of 10 children. Her father was a farmer and owned a flax mill.
Anna always loved painting, and as a child, she used lemon and grape juices, grass, sawdust, ground ochre, and other natural materials as paint, and created landscapes — or, as she called them, "lambscapes."
But her childhood lasted a much shorter time than any of ours did. At 12, she started working as a helper at a wealthy neighbor's farm, and would continue working as a housekeeper for the next 15 years.
One of the families she worked for noticed how interested she was in the arts, and so they bought her some pastels so she could create her own pieces.
When she was 27, Anna met Thomas Salmon Moses. They married and moved to Virginia. They had 10 children, but only five survived infancy.
They worked hard on various farms, and Anna always found a way to exhibit her creativity. She embroidered and quilted, giving many of her creations to friends and family.
This fireboard, which she painted in 1918, is one of her earliest surviving paintings. She loved to paint the rural landscapes of her childhood.
She was also inventive, just like when she was young. She used house paint to create this painting!
After the death of her husband in 1927 and her retirement from farmwork in 1936, at age 76, Anna found herself with a lot of free time.
By then, though, arthritis in her hands made embroidering difficult. At the recommendation of her sister, she took up painting. And the rest is history.
She began painting memories of her childhood, of rolling countrysides, farms, and social events.
Of course, she had no formal training. She got her footing by copying other artwork, but soon, she was painting vast and detailed panoramas, like this view of Hoosic Valley.
After her first exhibit, the press gave her the nickname "Grandma Moses," and the name stuck.
She also used her knowledge of embroidery to create paintings. Instead of blending her colors, for example, she would lay small strokes of color next to one another to create a pointillist effect.
She probably learned this from embroidering, since you can't blend two colors of thread, but have to stitch them close together to create the effect of a color gradient.
Grandma Moses looked to the past for inspiration. While painting, she used to say she could vividly remember it.
While painting, she said, "I'll forget everything, everything except for how things used to be, and how to paint it so people [would] know how we used to live."
Most of these paintings were created in the 1940s and '50s, but you'll see no telephone poles, tractors, or cars. That was because Grandma Moses was interested in showing off the world she grew up in.
Grandma Moses also painted local landmarks and legends, like the Checkered House, an inn that served as a hospital during the American Revolution.
She would paint a number of views of this house, each from a different perspective.
Over the next three decades, Grandma Moses created more than 1,500 paintings.
She started out selling them for as little as $3, but as she grew more and more famous, a single painting could sell for $10,000.
She gathered fans from all over the world, who loved the colorful, cheerful, and homey paintings.
As one fan put it, "The world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. You feel at home in all these pictures, and you know their meaning."
Her first exhibit was in a drugstore in upstate New York, but by the next year, she was showing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City with other emerging artists.
Her work quickly gained popularity, and soon, the nation, and the world, had fallen in love.
Her paintings were also frequently used on greeting and holiday cards and in advertisements, as people, tired of the paranoia of Cold War America, gravitated toward idyllic images like these.
Grandma Moses never let her age, her arthritis, or her hardworking life make her forget about her passion for art. And she kept creating until the very end of her life.
This painting, The Rainbow, was painted in 1961, when she was 101 years old.
In her autobiography, Grandma Moses stated: "I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be."
From doodling with grape juice to international acclaim — and an entire lifetime in between — Grandma Moses is a great inspiration to anyone who's ever felt like it might be too late.
SHARE her artwork and life story with someone who wants to take that first step!
